Weekly News Update: May 10, 2024

4 - 10 May 2024

Good morning,

Happy belated V-E day, everyone! On May 8, 1945 the Allied forces accepted Germany’s unconditional surrender in World War II. Interestingly, the day isn’t really celebrated in the west, but Russia loves to go whole-hog. Since the day of Stalin, the USSR and later Russian Federation have used Victory Day as an opportunity to showcase its military power and to remind the world that at one brief moment, they were on the right side of history. For the second year in a row, Russia has only displayed a single tank—a WWII era T-34–during the parade. The reality is that Russia has suffered heavy losses of its systems in Ukraine, with the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) stating this week that Russia cannot sustain the scale of its losses.

DefenseTech is at the forefront of the news this week with Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks outlining the systems and financing for the first tranche of the Replicator initiative. Unfortunately for the DoD, the systems being b…